I do not like to think of myself as a quitter yet that is exactly what I did three weeks ago. Not quite with the flair of airline guy or faux whiteboard girl (though had I been so inclined I think I could have given “Jenny” a run for her slash dot notoriety) just the usual two weeks notice and then slinking off quietly hoping that after five years I’d have left some type of mark other than adult on-set diabetes from all my baked goods.

So now I find myself unexpectedly unemployed. There is uncertainty but there is also regaining control and creativity. In the past week I’ve seen three films, started gutting the flat, baked Star Wars cookies, and had many lunches and coffees with friends. Soon I’ll start applying for part-time jobs and fingers crossed something will turn up. I’ve decided that part-time is the way forward given that this is my last year of my BA in Classical Studies, and I’m taking three courses which means I need to have the flexibility to prioritize them above everything else.

I feel like I am one of only two people (the other being my mum) who thoroughly enjoyed the volcanic eruption. It gave me breathing space, my meals were cooked for me, my tiny capsule wardrobe washed and ironed, and plenty of time to revise the affects of another volcanic eruption (Pompeii!). It was a real treat to be home for a whole month (I haven’t spent that much time in the UK since January 2005). To spend all those nights drinking tea and watching TV with my mum. To be able to bake for her (and the stranded people in our London office), to “let her” drive me to Starbucks to buy multiple flat whites to sustain me through my revision, and of course drag her to the cinema and theatre. I am such a good daughter – I do hope I get the larger half of the house in my mum’s will.

Being out of my bubble helped me make some decisions about what I hope to get out of the rest of 2010. It is always nice to make decision, and it is nice to be back sleeping in my own bed after a month on an air matress.

It’s all quiet on the blogging front at the moment as I hunker down to some serious exam revision. My first exam is on Monday and though it makes me feel like a wobbly jelly I am quite excited. In a week’s time it will all be over (for another year at least) and then I can get back to life, and blogging about life. I have many posts bubbling away – films, theatre, why I left FaceBook and most exciting of all that I have the seedling of an idea for a novel (my summer project).

This time next week I will be on a train heading up the east coast to Scotland so will have plenty of time for reflection and there is a rumor of free wifi on the train…

I just can’t get excited about gross domestic products or anything related to macro-economics. Don’t care about the difference between nominal and real. But, still all the related graphs and things are better than sociology, which in is IMO about as depressing as real life gets. Talk about no hope for humanity. I really don’t think I can face part two of the course – even though it will cover religion and crime. I’ll just read the chapters in my incredibly thick book instead.

I want to learn about Greek sculptures.

I want to read Aristophanes’ The Frogs.

I want to have a complete mind f&ck when I start learning Ancient Greek and Latin (which I have penciled in for 2006).

I guess I am neither a proper or social scientist. Give me Classics or as I like to call it legalised science fiction 🙂

I am often to be found lamenting on the failings of my general knowledge, today’s sore point – history (spurred on by this excellent Radio 4 program). I am becoming increasingly alarmed at how little I was taught/know and how I can’t fully understand current affairs without getting a better grasp of this subject. When I was at school, in London in the 1980s and 90s, a hot bed for wonky left wing thinking, the teaching of history (and many other subjects) was undergoing a metamorphism. It was considered old fashioned to teach Kings and Queens, events and dates, and the focus was solely on the world wars and women. It probably didn’t help that history, RE and geography were all lumped together as humanities and that we only studied one individual subject at a time for two hours per week, on a six week rotation. Cost cutting in education leads to polarised learning, which in turn produces stupid adults – but perhaps that’s what they want.

When I was a youngster I was in awe of the depth and range of my parents knowledge. Not all of it was taught to them at school, but there seemed to be more encouragement for personal learning, and to read around areas of interest. My father, though a businessman, would take us on long walks and identify the flora and fauna as we went. I am so ignorant that I don’t even know the trees on my road. I remember sitting with him on a bus, when I was about 6 or 7, and asking him about how this vehicle worked. He slowly explained the different parts and how they all worked together. My mother is definitely a renaissance women – art, history and literature being among her main strengths. A fun outlet for her talent, is to critique the costumes in films and theatre for their accuracy. I reckon she has read all of Shakespeare’s plays without being made to. As a little girl, I thought her part witch as she knew the endings to all the books we read before we finished them, or could explain the stories of plays we saw before getting to the theatre. For an up to date example, yesterday she talked me through taking my vacuum cleaner apart so I could figure out why it wasn’t working and smelt like it was going to burst into flames at any moment – the motor is busted so the fan belt wont turn.

So, I have resorted to the old fashion attitude of self education, as I sit in cafes about town forcing myself to read Hardy or Eliot (because like medicine it is good for me) people sometimes ask if I am a literature student – why else would I spend my time with Tess or Dorothea. They look bemused when I say, “No, just trying to, you know, better myself”. But, do today’s adults and parents need to be so well read and informed since there is the internet and the 30 second sound bites. Stuck on something google it. But, where is the magic in that.

It is far too early to be typing let alone thinking but needs must. I have so many documentaries on TiVo, damn Thirteen, to watch and revision notes to transpose. I figured I might has well wake up early and get on with them otherwise they are going to turn into an EU mountain similar to our current laundry situation.